Judge Rules For The Libertarian Party, Against Presidential Debates Comm

The Commission on Presidential Debates sponsored four prime time ninety minute debates in 2016 that were covered by nearly every news channel. It’s hard to quantify the value of that free advertising, but it was exclusively given to the Republican and Democrat nominees and withheld from other parties based on arbitrary rules. The Libertarian Party sued the Federal Elections Commission (which regulates the CPD) regarding that decision and labeled it an illegal in-kind political contribution made to the two parties by a purportedly non-partisan (and therefore questionably tax-exempt) Commission. Similar complaints had been dismissed before, but this specific argument (à la Bill Weld) hadn’t been tried yet. It worked.

The Judge in the case just ruled in favor of Level The Playing Field, the Libertarian Party, and the Green Party.